Tag Archives: Gaza

Netanyahu Replaces Fired Israeli Defense Minister With ‘Another Genocidal Lunatic’

“Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza,” said one observer.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-5-2024 by Common Dreams

Then-Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz signs a document on August 23, 2023. (Photo: Israel Katz/Facebook)

Palestine defenders on Tuesday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of swapping one “genocidal lunatic” for another after the right-wing leader fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replaced him with Israel Katz, who was serving as foreign minister.

“Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza,” journalist and genocide scholar Samira Mohyeddin said on social media following Netanyahu’s moves.

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‘Grotesque’: Israeli Knesset Bans UN Agency in Charge of Humanitarian Aid in Gaza

“This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly’s founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel’s international legal obligations.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-28-2024 by Common Dreams

The polio vaccination campaign reached over 145,000 children in Khan Younis and Rafah, southern #Gaza, with the vaccine and 119,000 aged 2-10 with supplementary vitamin A to increase their resistance to disease.. Photo: UNRWA/Facebook

Over a year into Israel’s obliteration of the Gaza Strip, Israeli lawmakers faced sharp criticism on Monday after voting for a pair of bills targeting the United Nations agency responsible for humanitarian aid in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

The first bill, which says that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “will not operate any missions, won’t provide any service, and won’t hold any activity—directly or indirectly—in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel,” passed the Israeli parliament 92-10.

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Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death is a defining moment, but it will not end the war

By Ian Parmeter, Australian National University. Published 10-17-2024 by The Conversation

Yahya Sinwar, the former Palestinian leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Screenshot: Al Jazeera

The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds behind the group’s horrific October 7 2023 attack on southern Israel, is no doubt a consequential moment in Israel’s year-long war against Hamas.

But is it a turning point?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sinwar’s killing – long a major objective of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – would signal the “beginning of the end” of the war. But he made clear the war is not over.

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US Deploys B-2 Stealth Bombers to Attack Yemen Without Congressional Approval

“Why is the U.S. bombing Yemen—with a B-2 bomber no less—with zero congressional authorization?”

By Jake Johnson. Published 10-18-2024 by Common Dreams

Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit – Stealth Bomber. Photo: Jonathan Cutrer/flickr/CC

The Biden administration on Wednesday deployed B-2 stealth bombers to launch multiple airstrikes on Yemen, attacks that underscored the United States’ deep involvement in a deadly regional war that is threatening to engulf the entire Middle East.

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that the strikes targeted “numerous Iran-backed Houthi weapons storage facilities within Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen that contained various advanced conventional weapons used to target U.S. and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters throughout the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”

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Does the US actually want to de-escalate the Middle East war?

Unwavering military and political support for Israel means US is embroiled in war – even if it doesn’t want to be

By Paul Rogers. Published 10-11-2024 by openDemocracy

Screenshot: CNN

One year into the devastating war in Gaza, and the conflict has spread far beyond Gaza itself, including not only Iran, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East region – but also, arguably the US, given its unwavering support – both verbally and materially – for Israel and its actions.

While much of Gaza lies in ruins with most houses, universities and hospitals destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced multiple times and an official death toll of 42,000 – there is now scarcely a whisper about even a pause in the fighting, yet alone a ceasefire.

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NATO Announces Nuclear Drills as Nobel Goes to Atomic Weapon Abolitionists

Disarmament advocate Beatrice Fihn stressed that the exercise is practice for “wiping out hundreds of thousands of civilians” with weapons that would also “flatten cities and poison survivors.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-11-2024 by Common Dreams

B-52 bombers. Photo: Public domain

The NATO military block announced Friday that its annual nuclear exercise is set to begin next week—news that arrived just as Japanese atomic bomb survivors who advocate for disarmament received the Nobel Peace Prize.

“There is bad timing, there is dropping a brick… and then there is this. Nice work,” the Geneva Nuclear Disarmament Initiative said in response to NATO Spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah on social media.

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80+ Groups Have Message for Biden: ‘No War With Iran!’

“It is not in the national interest for the U.S. to be led into a war with Iran,” the groups stressed.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 10-3-2024 by Common Dreams

Anti-war demonstrators gathered at The White House in a National Day of Action on January 4, 2020. Photo: Susan Melkisethian/flickr/CC

On the same day that President Joe Biden said his administration and Israeli leaders are “discussing” an attack on Iranian oil infrastructure, a coalition of over 80 advocacy groups on Thursday implored the U.S. leader to “halt Israel’s march toward regional war.”

The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) led the groups in a letter to Biden asserting that “it is not in the national interest for the U.S. to be led into a war with Iran” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu’s far-right government.

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Barred From Israel, UN Chief Warns Middle East ‘Fast Becoming an Inferno’

“This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop. Time is running out,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

By Jake Johnson. Published 10-2-2024 by Common Dreams

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Photo: Faces Of The World/flickr/CC

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday reiterated his urgent call for an end to violence and a diplomatic resolution in the Middle East shortly after Israel’s foreign minister declared that the U.N. chief was barred from entering the country, a move that drew international condemnation.

“The raging fires in the Middle East are fast becoming an inferno,” Guterres told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, denouncing Israel’s “relentless airstrikes across Lebanon,” devastation of the Gaza Strip, and obstruction of a cease-fire agreement that could pull the region back from the brink of all-out war.

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US is unlikely to stop giving military aid to Israel − because it benefits from it

By Dov Waxman, University of California, Los Angeles Published 8-22-2024 by The Conversation

Protesters step off for final permitted march of Chicago DNC. Screenshot: ABC 7 Chicago/YouTube

The Democratic National Convention has been packed with prominent speakers and musical interludes that all focus on unity and moving forward into a more hopeful future.

But this cheerfulness is shadowed by a split within the Democratic Party related to Israel’s war in Gaza. There have been calls by some delegates for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to support a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel.

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US Among Nations ‘Brazenly’ Flouting Arms Trade Treaty, 10 Years On: Amnesty

As a treaty conference began, the human rights group called for an end to arms transfers to Israel and said that unlawful deals have led to “devastating loss of life” in Gaza, Sudan, and Myanmar.

By Edward Carver. Published 8-19-2024 by Common Dreams

Control Arms At Occupy Wall Street 2011. Photo: Control Arms/flickr/CC

Amnesty International on Monday called for an end to arms transfers to countries including Israel, Sudan, and Myanmar, saying they cause “devastating loss of life” and contravene the Arms Trade Treaty, the parties to which are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland this week.

The United Nations treaty was signed by well over 100 countries in 2013 and went into effect in 2014, though 27 signatories, including the United States, the world’s largest arms exporter, still haven’t ratified the deal, which regulates the trade of conventional weapons including non-nuclear bombs, shells, and missiles.

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